To recruit 2,100 engineersIntel to invest $ 130 m in India
New Delhi, August 29
Intel will invest $ 130 million in its Indian operations during the next three years while embarking on a massive hiring spree to recruit about 2,100 engineers over the next five years.

21 apply for PTL adviser’s postChandigarh, August 29
The tenders of the Disinvestment Commission, Punjab, to call expression of interest from the global advisors have received a tremendous response.

Metro to export two-wheeler tyresNew Delhi, August 29
Metro Tyres will shortly start exporting two-wheeler tyres to the USA, Japan, Canada and Europe.
The company will start manufacturing tyres of motor-cycles, scooters and mopeds at its new plant in Ludhiana, which was set up with Swedish technology last year at a cost of Rs 40 crore.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy sits in
a new A-8 Audi model, while Audi AG Chairman Martin Winterkorn explains at Audi's new engine plant in the city of Gyor, in northwest of Hungary, on
Thursday. The Volkswagen-owned firm, Hungary's largest exporter, opened a new 135 million euro plant at its existing premises to boost the output of its most modern eight-cylinder engines. — Reuters

Industry told to get NOC on pollution by Sept 30Patiala, August 29
The Punjab Pollution Control Board has directed all large and medium scale industries, besides rice shellers and brick kilns, to acquire no objection certificates from the board with regard to installation of pollution devices by September 30 or face closure.

33 FDI proposals worth 53 cr cleared
New Delhi, August 29
The government today cleared 33 foreign direct investment proposals worth Rs 53 crore, including a Rs 33.68 crore proposal of General Atlantic Mauritius for picking up a 14 per cent stake in Gurgaon-based customer service and back office processing company Daksh e-Services.

Maruti to introduce M800 limited edition
New Delhi, August 29
Maruti Udyog is launching a limited edition variant of its entry-level car “Maruti800” on August 31 to cash in on the current surge in demand of the car after the recent price cut, company officials said today.

Honda unveils car navigation system
TOKYO: Honda Motor Co today unveiled a voice-operated car navigation system to be offered on its Accord sedan this autumn, though it lacked the bells and whistles of Toyota Motor Corp’s rival system.

New Delhi, August 29
Intel will invest $ 130 million in its Indian operations during the next three years while embarking on a massive hiring spree to recruit about 2,100 engineers over the next five years.

“I am happy to announce that Intel has decided to invest $ 130 million for expansion of its operations in India and it has also decided to increase its professionals from the existing 900 to 3,000 in the next three to five years”, Communications and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters here after signing an MoU with the visiting Intel CEO Craig Barrett.

The MoU will envisage Intel and the Ministry’s joint working in the field of education and e-governance among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Barrett said Intel has decided to set up a chip design centre in the country.

The centre which will initially have 30 to 40 engineers will work on high-end 32-bit Intel Architecture platform inside the Bangalore centre, he said.

There is, however, no thinking on setting up of any manufacturing facility in India at least at the moment”, Barrett said.

The issue of a chip manufacturing base also came up during the discussion Barret had with Mahajan.

Under the MoU, in the e-governance sphere, Intel will form consortia with industry partners with domain knowledge to develop and implement pilot solutions to the Central Government and identified state governments.

It will also provide technological know-how to these projects and share technology roadmap to ensure the best technology under non-disclosure agreement, according to the MoU.

Under the education partnership, an additional 100,000 teachers are likely to be trained by Intel in 2003 while the company would continue its initiative in curriculum design and faculty development covering 44 academic institutions.

Intel will also partner the Ministry under the Vidya Vahini project which is a pilot at present covering 150 schools.

The chip major will also provide training and content support to the Education and Research Network (ErNet) Society under the Ministry.

Intel and centres research initiative Media Lab Asia will explore the possibilities of cooperation to bridge the digital divide. Craig Barrett also met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The Intel CEO presented a memento to the Prime Minister.
PTI

Chandigarh, August 29
The tenders of the Disinvestment Commission, Punjab, to call expression of interest ( EOI ) from the global advisors have received a tremendous response. In all, 21 firms, including almost all merchant bankers, have submitted their EOI to work as the financial advisers. Today was the last date for the submission of bids for Punjab Tractors Ltd (PTL).

Ms Vini Mahajan, Director, Disinvestment Commission, Punjab, said 20 firms had submitted their EOI, including Ernst & Young, Lazard India, Merchant Banking division of the UTI, ANZ Grindlays, Abacus and Sicom. She said,‘‘ In the next few days, the
commission would call their representatives to make their presentations about their plans, terms and conditions. Within two weeks, we would finalise the names of the advisers. ’’

Incidentally, the bids for EOI for the Punjab Alkalies and Chemical Ltd.- failed to generate much response from the advisers. Only nine firms had submitted their EOI by August 23, the last date for the submission.

The stock market analysts point out that the Punjab Government’s plan to generate funds may not be fulfilled due to depressed market conditions and the impact of drought on the tractor market. In fact, the share price of the PTL has declined from Rs 181 about nine months ago to Rs 144.

Till a few days ago,it was hovering around Rs 152, however, the poor results of the company in the first quarter and the impact of the draught on the market have adversely affected its shares.

As far as Punjab Alkalies is concerned, its share price is between Rs 10-12 for the past many months. The insiders say since the company had already lost its competitive edge in the market, it would require heavy investments from the bidders to revive its fortunes.

The officials said though the government was yet to decide the per cent age share to be offered to the bidders, however, the company could fetch good premium of 25 to 40 per cent over its current market value. Different stock market experts, they said, had assessed the value of PTL varying from Rs 400 to Rs 800 crore, however, the bidder would have also to make a bid for its subsidiaries— Swaraj Mazda and Swaraj Engines.

New Delhi, August 29
Metro Tyres will shortly start exporting two-wheeler tyres to the USA, Japan, Canada and Europe.

The company will start manufacturing tyres of motor-cycles, scooters and mopeds at its new plant in Ludhiana, which was set up with Swedish technology last year at a cost of Rs 40 crore.

Metro is investing another Rs 20 crore in this plant to create a manufacturing line for two-wheeler tyres. The new manufacturing line will produce 6,00,000 tyres and 6,00,000 tubes per annum.

“We will tap the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) as well as the replacement market in Europe, USA, Canada and Japan”, Managing Director of the company Mr Rummy Chabbra told The Tribune.

Metro’s foray into two wheeler tyres comes immediately after the company’s recent foray into sports wheel segment. Recently Metro had signed a long term agreement with German tyre major Continental AG to produce hi-tech rubber sports wheel in India.

The company is targeting a turnover of Rs 500 crore by the end of next three years and export figure of Rs 100 crore.

The total turnover of the company in the last fiscal was Rs 257 crore, out of which exports constituted around Rs 35 crore.

This is in addition to Metro’s earlier tie-up with Continental to export bi-cycle tyres under the Metro brand name. The company has recorded a 110 per cent jump over the previous year’s export this year and has exported tyres worth Rs 18 crore in the present year.

“Our association with Continental gives us a rich experience of overseas markets.

At present, negotiations are at an advanced stage with two-wheeler manufacturers in overseas markets”, Mr Chabbra said.

In the bi-cycle segment, Metro Tyres has the capacity to produce 1.5 lakh tyres and 1.5 lakh tubes per day.

In the domestic market, Metro is supplying tyres to Hero Cycles, Atlas, RMI and TI Cycles besides catering to the overseas OEM market. The company has also recently launched its bicycle tyres under the Ortem brand name.

Patiala, August 29
The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has directed all large and medium scale industries, besides rice shellers and brick kilns, to acquire no objection certificates (NOCs) from the board with regard to installation of pollution devices by September 30 or face closure.

At a meeting of the board presided over by Chairman Satish Chandra here yesterday it was decided to direct all such industries to acquire NOCs from the board immediately. It was also decided that the board would start the process of serving notices to errant units after September 30 and that all such units would be closed it by October 31.

The board also decided that rice sheller owners would be allowed to mill paddy during the coming season only if they had installed pollution control devices in their premises.

Similarly it was decided that licences of only those brick kilns would be renewed who had installed the required devices to control pollution.

Mr Satish Chandra also gave directions to environment engineers to do a special survey and prepare an area-wise list of the number of industries in their areas and asecertain how they were disposing of their waste material.

He also directed the engineers to take samples of chemical waste disposed of by the industries in their areas to know whether hazardous chemicals were being released by them.

The meeting also reviewed the pollution level in various cities and it was revealed that Ludhiana topped the pollution chart followed by Mandi Gobindgarh and Jalandhar.

It was also revealed that as many as 208 out of 301 units in the large scale industry category has still not acquired NOCs and that the figure was 303 out of 312 units in the medium sector and 2,125 ot of 9,419 units in the small scale sector.

New Delhi, August 29
The government today cleared 33 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth Rs 53 crore, including a Rs 33.68 crore proposal of General Atlantic Mauritius for picking up a 14 per cent stake in Gurgaon-based customer service and back office processing company Daksh e-Services.

The proposals were cleared by the Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran on the basis of recommendations made by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), an official release said here.

The proposal of Yamaha Motor for payment of royalty and lumpsum on manufacture of two new four-stroke motor cycle models by its fully-owned Indian subsidiary Yamaha Motor India was also cleared.

Detroit Diesel proposal to trade in hi-tech diesel engines manufactured by its companies worldwide through Bangalore-based MTU Detroit Diesel India also received approval.

The Rs 9.80 crore proposal of US company Avnet Inc to increase equity to 100 per cent in its Indian arm, Avent Max was also cleared.

Other proposals cleared included US auto component maker Visteon Global Technologies for amendment in terms of technical alliance with its local unit Visteon Automotive Systems India.
PTI

New Delhi, August 29
Maruti Udyog is launching a limited edition variant of its entry-level car “Maruti800” on August 31 to cash in on the current surge in demand of the car after the recent price cut, company officials said today.

The new car will be priced at about Rs 7,000 higher than the existing variants at Rs 1.98 lakh (Ex-showroom Delhi) for the Standard Euro-I version and Rs 2.16 lakh and Rs 2.65 lakh for the Standard and Deluxe (both Euro-II) versions, the officials told PTI here.

Besides, Maruti is also expecting a nearly 40 per cent rise in sales of the car this month at about 12,500 units as against 8,932 units sold in the previous month.

The limited edition M800 will be sold for only three months till November this year to coincide with the coming festive season.

It will have body graphics, body-coloured bumpers and body-coloured front-grill and will be available in two new colours — Moonbeam Silver and Riviera Red.

The car will have colour-coordinated interiors, including seat upholstery, door trim, leather steering wheel cover and carpets besides a new instrument cluster.

The launch of the new variant is also likely to have been influenced by the good market response received to a limited edition M800 launched earlier this year along with the current rise in demand of the car after the price cut.
PTI

As an online e-mail marketing tool, Smart Mailz will allow companies to manage online campaigns and marketing activities in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Smart Mailz will help companies to carry out their e-mail marketing initiatives by allowing easy campaign planning and execution, direct interaction with customers.

Some features of Smart Mailz include creation of professional looking messages, pre-scheduling delivery options and time for different campaigns at one go.
TNS

ROUND-UP

Honda unveils car navigation system

TOKYO:
Honda Motor Co today unveiled a voice-operated car navigation system to be offered on its Accord sedan this autumn, though it lacked the bells and whistles of Toyota Motor Corp’s rival system.

Japan’s second-largest automaker said its new navigation system, called InterNavi Premium Club, offered regularly updated traffic reports, news, maintenance and other information, as well as the ability to e-mail.

It will be available as an option and updates of the DVD map software will be provided free of cost for three years.
Reuters

Daewoo plants remain closed

SEOUL:
Daewoo Motor Co’s plants remained shut for the second day even as a boycott by a major part supplier is set to widen to include others who are together owed $700 million in unpaid bills.

The dispute with suppliers comes as General Motor Corp prepares to launch a revived Daewoo under a joint venture later this year. Daewoo’s all four plants in South Korea were closed on Thursday, company spokesman Kim Sung-soo said here.
Reuters

Microsoft games for Japan cybercafes

TOKYO: Microsoft Corp has announced a new way to lure gamers to its Xbox by allowing Internet cafe users in Japan to play its games online.

Microsoft said from next week, it would license nearly 250 Internet cafes in Japan to offer two of its games. The company said more of its online games would become available soon.
Reuters

Bajaj Elec to shut die-cast division

MUMBAI:
Bajaj Electricals has decided to close down its die-casting division at Matchwel unit in Pune due to persistent lack of orders for the product.

Appropriate notices have been issued under the Industrial Disputes Act,1947, for the closure of the division, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today.
PTI

Spice ties up with rediff.com

CHANDIGARH:
The Spice mobile phone users in Punjab can now access their rediffmail accounts on their handsets as Spice has tied up with rediff.com to provide value-added service to its customers. This enables Spice customers to send and receive e-mails from their rediffmail accounts through their Spice mobile phones.

The service is available to both post and pre-paid subscribers. Mr Rohit Malhotra, Vice-President (sales and marketing), Spice Telecom, said: “Tie-ups, such as this one with rediff.com, enable us to offer unique value-added service to our customers.”
TNS

HPCL declares 100 pc dividend

MUMBAI:
The shareholders of Hindustan Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (HPCL) have approved a 100 per cent dividend for 2001-02 at the company’s 50th annual general meeting held here on Wednesday.

HPCL Chairman and Managing Director Mahesh B.Lal said the company had achieved sales of Rs 1223.14 crore as compared to Rs 1174.97 crore in the corresponding period last year. During this period, its profit after tax had declined to 144.6 crore from Rs 204 crore in Q1-FY’02.
UNI

Mahesh Yogi floats peace bonds

WASHINGTON: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has said he wanted to build 3,000 “peace palaces” around the globe, to be financed by bonds.The bonds, to be called “World Peace Raam Bonds,” will be issued by the “Global Country of World Peace—a virtual country without land—to be headed by an Indian doctor, Yogi Said in The Netherlands.
PTI

Plan panel lowers GDP rate to 5.5 pc

NEW
DELHI: An internal assessment by the Planning Commission has revealed that GDP growth projections for the current fiscal may have to be lowered to around 5.5 per cent from 6.5 per cent earlier on account of the drought situation prevailing in some parts of the country.

Planning Commission officials, however, maintain that this will in no way impact the overall growth projections of 8 per cent set for the Tenth Five Year Plan period.
PTI

Private parties to distribute coins

MUMBAI: The RBI has decided to engage the services of private parties for distribution of coins in major towns across the country.

The RBI said in a statement here today that it would pay a service charge of Rs 250 per coin bag collected from its counters. The agencies would have to distribute coins to the public at face value without any
commission or charges. Coins will be available in denominations of Re 1, Rs 2, 5 as also 25 and 50 paise, the statement clarified.

The apex bank has invited applications from agencies such as public sector undertakings, co-operative banks, regional rural banks and reputed social welfare institutions for this purpose.
UNI

Price index up
Shimla, August 29
The consumer price index number for industrial workers base 1982-100 increased by five points during July, 2002, to stand at 481. The increase was attributed mainly to an increase in house rent and rise in the prices of wheat, arhar dal, fresh onions, vegetables and fruits. Delhi was on the top of index table with 561 points, Bangalore (537) and Chennai (515), a Labour Bureau release said. However, point to point rate of inflation based on CPI-IW decreased from 4.16 per cent in June, 2002 to 3.89 per cent in July, 2002.
PTI

Award for P. MarkChandigarh, August 29
P. Mark mustard oil yesterday received “National award for quality products” in the small scale sector. It includes a cash prize of Rs 25,000 along with a trophy and a certificate. This award was given by Mr Jaswant Singh to Mrs Indu Puri, promoter of the firm.
TNS

Deal for LeylandMumbai, August 29
Ashok Leyland has won two orders worth Rs 34 crore to supply buses to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The company has signed a contract with People Leasing Company of Sri Lanka to provide 250 fully built 42-seater “Viking” buses, the company said in a release here today.
PTI

Food processingNew Delhi, August 29
An investment of Rs 1,000 crore will bring employment to 54,000 people in the food processing sector. The growth of food processing sector will also result in likely growth in employment at 2.61 per cent, says a study by the PHDCCI.
TNS

Transport fairNew Delhi, August 29
A three-day international trade fair for the transport and logistics sector showcasing the latest developments and technology of the new millennium will get underway here from September 2.
UNI

PNB loansAmritsar, August 29
The Sultanwind branch of PNB here today released loans to the tune of Rs 30 lakh for constructing houses. The Chief Manager, Regional Office, Mr S.S. Arora presided over the function.
OC

CMC growthHyderabad, August 29
The Computer Maintenance Corporation(CMC), which has been acquired by the Tatas, has projected a growth rate of between 20 and 25 per cent in the coming year. The CMC was expecting overseas orders from the UK, Germany, West Asia and Malaysia, CMC Managing Director S.S. Gosh told newsmen here today.
UNI

SBI dividendMumbai, August 29
The SBI today handed over a dividend cheque for Rs 188.60 crore to the RBI for 2001-02.
PTI